Handle With Care
by Whiscash
Summary: With the majority of Inkwell's population wearing gloves, Djimmi thought his palmistry days were long behind him. But these days – particularly since Beppi cannonballed into it – his life isn't quite as predictable as it used to be. (post-game, Magic Carnival fluff)


**Handle With Care  
**

 **by Whiscash**

 **pairing** : Beppi the Clown/Djimmi the Great

 **notes:** heads up, guys, there's some pretty hardcore hand-on-hand action in this one. Bare hands, even! :O (because for some reason I like to imagine that not wearing gloves in Inkwell is the equivalent of like, showing your ankles in Victorian times. scandalous~)

Anyway, back to your semi-regularly scheduled serving of disgustingly self indulgent cotton candy floof :D hope you like, and as always, I would love to hear what you thought!

* * *

Across the isles of Inkwell, it was self-evident that gloves held a special significance for the majority of its residents.

A being as long-lived as Djimmi had naturally seen countless trends come and go, but this tradition had outlived all of them. He recalled it likely started among the workers down at the docks, or in the fields, as a means of protecting their hands from the hazards of hard labour, but for many it was a purely aesthetic choice; the Baroness, for instance, proudly flaunted her finest silk garments all day, however impractical they may have been for crafting confectionery. Djimmi had even been curious enough to conjure himself up a pair once or twice, but they only interfered with the flow of his magic, as well as looking frankly ridiculous on the end of his beefy arms.

He didn't imagine he'd miss out on too much going without – except that, since he was just a few hundred years old, he'd been schooled in the art of chiromancy. It used to be one of his signature tricks, and folks would flock from all over to hear his insights, always astounded and delighted by Djimmi's ability to foretell their destiny simply via the unique indents of their palm. He took great pride in his craft, and he never tired of of telling all the isles' different stories, paths and possibilities, watching their faces light up with wonder. But now, with gloves an almost permanent fixture, such a service was practically unthinkable. Removing one's gloves – especially to clasp the bare hand of another – was an expression of the deepest trust and intimacy, and certainly not something to lay before any strange showman. His customers these days preferred to see their fortunes through a crystal ball or tarot cards, which Djimmi was happy to oblige. He'd accepted that the world had moved on, and his palmistry days were behind him – even if he occasionally missed them, he knew well by now that one must adapt to evolve, or else risk gathering dust in his lamp for another thousand years, another forgotten relic of the past.

For one so supposedly wise, Djimmi reflected wryly, an awful lot of unexpected events seemed to have befallen him of late – particularly since the day Beppi had catapulted, literally, into his life and almost as abruptly, his heart.

They were relaxing after another eventful day of fun and frivolities, cosied up in his tent on the plush heap of cushions. Djimmi used one hand to levitate and flick through the pages of the _Inkwell Enquirer_ while absent-mindedly petting Beppi's smooth head with the other as he sprawled out across his lap, animatedly describing the teensy hiccup with the trampoline and the elephants.

"...but like I told them, _I_ couldn't possibly have known they'd get so spooked, the poor little guy just wanted to make friends! Sure, _you_ probably could've, but that's kinda unfair since you can see the future just by looking at someone's hand – that's one of your things, right? Hey, hey, you should read _my_ palm next!"

"Hmm?" Djimmi blinked distractedly, taking a moment to catch up with Beppi's typically breakneck stream of chatter as he glanced down into his ever-bright, hopeful golden eyes. "Well, yes, palm reading _is_ one of the many skills in my repertoire – but it has been a long time. I might be a little rusty."

"Nice to meet ya, Rusty," his clownfriend grinned, holding out his hand as if awaiting a shake, "I'm Beppi."

Djimmi rolled his eyes, but he supposed he'd floated right into that one, his scoff releasing an inadvertent heart-shaped puff of smoke from his pipe. "Just – come here, and let's see what we can see in these mitts of yours. Other than cotton candy, that is." He took the offered hand and pulled Beppi gently upright, sweeping most of the cushions aside with a wave so they sat opposite one another, linked hands forming a bridge between them as he brushed his thumb over the bright blue cuff above Beppi's glove.

"May I?"

"Well, geez, big guy, you could at least buy me _dinner_ first," Beppi purred, fluttering his eyelashes flirtatiously; Djimmi refrained from reminding him that he _had_ bought him dinner last night, most of it ending up anywhere but his mouth, and accepted that as permission, slipping off his glove to reveal the lesser-spotted hand. It was far from the first time he'd held it, and yet he was still taken by how soft and warm Beppi's skin was against his, how small his hand looked out of its glove, dwarfed by Djimmi's thick, strong fingers – and, most of all, the stark contrast of his natural colour with the bold red and white that decorated his face, which Djimmi's eyes apparently lingered on a moment too long.

"What, is it bad already? Give it to me straight, doc – how many days do I have left?!" Beppi recoiled in mock-horror, gazing fearfully down at his own hand as though it might spontaneously burst into flames. Djimmi chuckled and gently squeezed his wrist in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.

"There's nothing wrong – it's a lovely hand. I just…" He hesitated, choosing his words carefully, "seem to remember this one being a lot redder."

"Ohhh, yeah. Y'know, being a living balloon's a hoot for a while, but it sure knocks the wind out of ya." If Beppi's laugh was a shade more subdued than usual, no one else would've caught it as he wiggled his bare, surprisingly dainty fingers against Djimmi's. "So…back to boring ol' ordinary-coloured fella under here for now."

"The very last thing anyone could accuse you of being is boring," Djimmi pointed out, stroking his thumb across Beppi's palm both to remind himself of the lines to interpret and because he could, "or ordinary."

The last few months had been a period of adjustment for many of Inkwell's inhabitants. Years under the Devil's influence didn't dissolve as rapidly as their contracts burned, but faded away slowly but surely as the former debtors attempted to reconnect with their old lives, their old selves. Beppi's colourful complexion had been a permanent fixture for so long, but now he was back to touching it up the old-fashioned way, Djimmi had glimpsed a previously unseen insecurity in his partner; for a good while, he still refused to set foot outside his tent without a full face of makeup. It was almost as though he was afraid to be "only" human again, as if without the theatrical powers he'd sacrificed his soul for, he'd no longer be enough, when Djimmi knew – heck, _everyone_ who stepped through the carnival gates surely knew – all the crazy colours and rubber-limbed contortions in the world wouldn't mean a thing without the effervescent, big-hearted, irrepressible and irreplaceable soul beating underneath.

Fortunately, now both were free of that particular predicament, Djimmi had all the time in the world to remind him.

"Now – let's start with your life line…"

As he began the reading, an even more unprecedented event occurred – Beppi was _quiet,_ save for the occasional flinching and giggling when Djimmi traced a touch too lightly over the sensitive whorls of his skin, but otherwise listening attentively as he noted the curve of his life line, an indication of his boundless energy. Further down, there were two small, but distinct breaks in the line, representing sudden changes in lifestyle – one of those came as no surprise, Djimmi glancing up to meet his eyes as they shared a knowing, sympathetic smile. He felt Beppi tense the slightest bit, though, as he hovered over the crease – its placement suggesting the turning point had begun earlier in life – and he wondered… Beppi rarely, if ever, spoke of life outside the circus – he and it were one in every possible way, and one could almost believe he'd simply sprung into existence like one of his balloon menagerie, fully formed and ready to entertain. It wasn't until some time after they'd gotten together, in a rare post-performance quiet moment, he'd remarked on how his folks always hoped he'd find a respectable job in the city someday, settle down with a nice dame, and Beppi had managed to fail them in every way.

He'd quickly waved it off with typical flippancy ("not that _you're_ not the sweetest patootie a fella ever could ask for, Djimbo"), but Djimmi had felt an ache deep in his old soul to think that his love, who strived so tirelessly to spread joy and laughter across the isles, might not have received the support he deserved from his own family. He knew better than to press for more before he was ready – Beppi was almost as skilled at wriggling out of difficult conversations as he was out of a clown car – but Djimmi may have held him just a little bit tighter that night.

Returning to the matter at hand – damn, those puns really were contagious – he moved onto Beppi's head line, its divergence from his life line demonstrating his equally plentiful enthusiasm for life and thirst for adventure. However, he observed, the arc also suggested a short attention span; Beppi gasped in faux indignation, clutching his free hand to his chest as though deeply wounded by such an insinuation, but Djimmi only had to raise a single eyebrow to get him to crack, inconveniently infectious snorts and snickers spilling free and slightly ruining Djimmi's mysterious, dignified air. Once they'd recovered, he pointed out the smaller lines criss-crossing through the crease, which indicated Beppi may face a few more momentous decisions in life than most, both past and future. On whether he tended to make _wise_ decisions, he couldn't resist adding dryly, Djimmi could not possibly comment.

That assessment, before Beppi could protest, led nicely to the line of the heart: long and curved, it touched his life line at the arc. This indicated he wasn't shy about expressing his emotions, as Djimmi was aware, but his heart was more fragile than it might appear. He may have been bruised in the past, Djimmi observed as neutrally as possible, not feeling the need to probe too deeply into his romantic history. Unless Beppi wanted to share himself, he didn't need to know _every_ detail – even if Djimmi may have wondered once or twice whether, from the way they bickered, he might ever have held a torch for the fiery Baroness, but he wasn't going to mention –

"Why'd you say it like that? Are you _jealous_?"

"I'm simply interpreting the evidence as laid before me, nothing more."

"Uh- _huuuh_ – so why're you blushing?"

"I am _not_ – look, that's just the colour of my…"

"Liar, liar, pants on fi–"

" _Please be quiet while I am attempting to determine your destiny._ "

...As Djimmi was _saying_ , before he was so rudely interrupted and as the traitorous warmth in his cheeks subsided, these smaller lines marked a fair amount of emotional turmoil. For as long as he'd known him, Beppi was always very much an all-or-nothing kind of fellow; his was a rollercoaster of dizzying highs punctuated by devastating lows, and the more tangled he'd gotten in the Devil's invisible puppet strings, the more those occasional self-destructive tendencies blew up to alarming, occasionally terrifying proportions. Djimmi felt him shiver slightly as his finger retraced its path, and he doubted either of them needed reminding of that.

More promisingly, however, was the line's starting point below his index finger, which told Djimmi that after such tumultuous times, Beppi's heart was due – perhaps sooner than he might think – to finally settle into contentment. (Djimmi didn't bother disguising the smugness in his smile, and although Beppi blew a cheeky raspberry at him, the sparkle in his eyes and lack of protestation was all the confirmation he needed)

"Of course, there are so many more things that shape our ultimate fates," he continued smoothly. "As we see here from your..." Djimmi paused, a slight frown creasing his brow as he scanned Beppi's hand again, wondering if he'd missed it in his rustiness. "Well – here I _would_ expect to see how external circumstances have steered your path, as mirrored in your fate line. But, as fate would have it, I don't see one."

"Wait, wait – I don't have a fate line?!" Beppi echoed, his colourful features contorting into a unique combination of comically exaggerated yet endearingly earnest alarm. "What's that all about? Where'd it go? Also, what's a fate line?"

Djimmi chuckled, soft and enigmatic and perhaps intensifying the suspense just a moment longer as he moved his hand to lace his fingers with Beppi's, marvelling at how they fit together despite – or perhaps because of – the apparent disparities. Vibrant orange intertwined with soft peach, the mystic and the mortal – and yet, at the end of the day, simply skin meeting skin. The smallest gesture that spoke so much louder than centuries of palmistry practice ever could.

"It means," he said finally, lowering his head and lifting Beppi's hand to his lips to kiss his knuckles, the tip of each finger, down to the warm cradle of his palm spelling out his chequered past and their hopeful future, savouring every second as that glorious smile unfolded, bigger and brighter and more dazzling than all the attractions of his carnival combined. Djimmi felt Beppi's pulse quicken as he reached the delicate underside of his wrist and he smiled against the warm skin; a part of him so rarely bared, vulnerable, and human, and his, "that your destiny is, so to speak...in your own hands."

Beppi whooped with delight at the absolutely intentional pun, his cheeks glowing pink with pleasure through the paint right before – never one for waiting – he launched himself at Djimmi, winding his arms around his neck as they tumbled to the cushions in a tangle of lips, limbs and laughter, and Djimmi could no longer bring himself to care whether he never saw another palm in his life.

He already had the whole world in his hands.


End file.
